Kayashi  K'oyayci
by eyyowlf
Summary: KOTOR. The Ebon Hawk makes a detour to Dantooine. Jedi business. No explanations. To kill time, and to get away, Canderous and Carth go on a hunting trip in the grasslands and talk about the Mandalorian Wars. Male Revan/Bastila, Female Exile  mentioned .
1. Chapter 1

Warmed by the rising sun, a third-year stalker lizard wended its way through tall grass. It was a long powerful body, all knees, and moved with surprising speed. Its blue skin blended it into the violet mishmash of the Dantooine plains. Its flickering tongue brought to it a myriad of scents, some sharp and unknown, but the rank markings of the herd overpowered its brain. It was the time of the season that the iriaz females dropped their calves, and already it could smell the wet afterbirth and pungent milk.

A pitiful bleat sounded nearby, and it went straight through the reptile's body from nose to tail-tip. The stalker lizard froze, one of its feet frozen in mid-step. Then its blue tongue rolled out and flickered. Its striped eyes swivelled and oriented. A newborn iriaz calf stumbled about on its clumsy legs.

The reptile paused. Then it pushed off and went a sideways walk through the grass. The important thing was to snatch and kill quickly. It could leave the carcass behind; the iriaz would be angered but they would move on. Once it was dead nothing could be done.

The iriaz calf wailed for its mother once more. She was walking toward him, ears fluttering, her horned head eye-level with the grass. The birth had been difficult for her but she would still have the strength to fight.

The stalker lizard made itself low in the grass. Its eyes followed the calf, which began to stumble and prance, half-falling down. Its gawky hind legs were almost in range. One strong bite and shake would sever the limb. Let the calf bleed out.

A little dancing light stole the reptile's attention.

A little red mote.

The stalker lizard's eye moved to orient on the light just in front of it, glinting on grass blades.

The calf bleated again. The time was now.

The light was out of view. That little red dot.

The shot, when it came, turned the reptile's head into fine mist. The body kicked and jerked after that.

That lone crack of sound set off the entire herd. Hundreds of iriaz moved all at once, scattering every which way, mothers and young, and the males. Green-gold bodies everywhere, leaping and bucking, before the shimmering mass of animals converged into a powerful torrent that thundered across the morning plains.

"Dawwww, my hero," said Canderous Ordo.

Without taking his eye from the scope, Onasi held his hand sideways and made a one-fingered Nar Shaddaa salute. "Told you I could hit a target from here."

"Hell, so could my daughter when she was eight," Canderous replied. "A good head shot, too, straight through a slot visor."

"You people shouldn't be allowed to have kids."

"_Usenye_."

That was about as much _mando'a_ that Carth retained. "Yeah, no thanks." He leaned away from the rifle and sat up, half crooked on his arm.

Canderous smirked.

The two men were stretched out on the ridge above the trampled grasslands. The sun had just come up but already the heat baked them in their field clothes. Carth had shed his armor for something more mobile, and he was beginning to regret that he had taken his jacket.

"Well, you scared 'em all away, Onasi," Canderous told him. "Could have had a prime shot."

"The stalker would have spooked them anyway."

Canderous grunted as he got up, snatching up the sniper rifle. "Maybe. So, kill's a kill. Now you got to eat the liver."

"Let's not," Carth said, "and say I did." Getting to his feet was harder than he thought. Sitting so long in the pilot chair was killing his back.

"You don't waste your kill." Canderous raised his scarred eyebrows. "It's not done."

"So what, you wanna make some boots out of it, or what?" Carth began to walk his way down, picking his way down the hillside to the reptile carcass.

The Mandalorian grinned as he slung the sniper rifle over his shoulder. "Maybe a nice purse to go with it."

"Sure, you've got to match. Keep it classy."

The_ Ebon Hawk_ had touched down on Dantooine for the third time. Two times too many, as far as Carth was concerned, but in this situation he felt he had no choice. It was a decision he and Bastila made together. Bha'lir needed looking at. If the jedi couldn't help him with his nightmares, then maybe one of the Republic garrison docs could get him some sedatives. Just in case. Nobody wanted to go through that episode again, and even Bastila insisted it was a good idea.

But the jedi cloistered the both of them away and the rest of the crew couldn't even see them. Carth had been ready to rip down the walls, but Bha'lir was allowed to make an appearance, his usual self again, yawning through a smile. "Oh man.. I'm gonna kill myself," were his first words, to Carth's deep-seated and terrible fear. But his next ones were, "You can't get the holonet here!" But he'd seen the look on Carth's face already, so he laughed, and hugged him, though that was a bit much, Carth was always annoyed how he had to touch you when he talked. He hated touchy-touchers. And people who talked with their hands.

"Somehow I'll pull through," he'd laughed at Carth.

"Yeah well, I'm sure your zabrak porno sites will be there waiting for you to get back."

"Zabrak porno? What?" His big yellow eyes reminded Carth of the time the local wharf cat slipped and fell into the water. That same expression. "Am I into that?" Shocked, but now tantalized, a slow sly spreading smile on his face.

"Well come along, we must be going, Master Zhar wanted to see you, and you like Master Zhar, don't you," Bastila said archly, and she had shot eye daggers at Carth, mouthing, 'Stop REMINDING him!'

So Carth had gone back to sit and wait in the enclave courtyard, frowning at the tinkling fountains, the chirpy little brainwashed padawans. Mission hanging on Zaalbar like a baby wook, groaning, "Sooooooo boooooooored" and "I can't even get the holo.. This is wronnnng. Carth let me try your datapad, mine won't log on, pleaase."

Canderous, meanwhile, had paced around all cagey. A lone Mandalorian in the heart of his enemy's power. Everyone staring. All eyes on the Ordo clan tattoo. "Onasi," he'd barked, suddenly. "Wanna go kill some shit?"

"I'm at about that point, yeah."

Onasi wondered what HK would think of his rifle borrowed and used on this little jaunt. Then he had to remind himself that HK didn't have thoughts like a human would.. And that HK wasn't a him. It was a machine. It was a machine currently in Off mode, safely disabled, its platform's limbs arranged in a sitting position on a chair in the Hawk's cargo hold. Mission had taken pity on it and wedged a cushion under its head. But that was unnecessary.. and more than it deserved.

Within twelve paces of the stalker lizard, Canderous drew out a huge knife from the inside of his vest. Carth knew the type from back in the wars, the kind with an edge like a chisel. For a brief moment he felt the chill of the Dagar northern continent, that polar station, before the heat of Dantooine closed in again and brought him back to the present.

The Mandalorian took a knee by the lizard's carcass, pulled it half-up by one of the legs, and plunged the knife in.

Carth crossed his arms. If Canderous really wanted this to be the latest event in their pissing contest, so be it. One part of him was through all these games, hated it, hated this downtime and wanted to push on with the mission. The other part of him, the hot shot pilot still down in there, still kicking, that part loved competition. Bring it on. Though it was only about six in the morning local time, Carth pulled out his flask. You had to do this right.

Canderous handed him a hot fleshy glob and half a handful of goo to go with it.

Carth tested its viscuousity with a squishy squeeze of his fingers. He could probably get in a few good chews before he could swallow. "_K'oyacyi_."

Looking the Mandalorian hard in the eye, standing over the body of his kill, Carth Onasi put the bloody mess in his mouth, chewed, and tipped his head back with a burning mouthful of dead Kang's whiskey.

"Kayashi," he said.

Canderous stared. Then his hard eyes crinkled at the corners, and a smile spread across his craggy face. "You're all right, Republic," he said.

* * *

Canderous son of Candra had come to find out that when you were one of the last of the scattered Mandalorians, you could pretty much make up anything and the dar'manda would take you at your word. On his clan's homeworld, there was no particular ritual of eating the liver from one's kill. That was because on the dusty red world of Ordo, everything was poisonous, and everything would kill you.

Granted, the liver of the Dantooine stalker lizard was also poisonous. A lot of the stalker lizard was poison. Not the internal gonads, though, which was why Canderous had been careful to cut those out for the pilot. Didn't think he'd actually eat them. How about that.

Didn't think Onasi would come out here with him again. Didn't think he'd ever be palling around with one of the most feared and hated enemies of his people. Respected, too. Those of his clan had respected the Aurek pilot. Had rejoiced when they shot him down that one time. Had lamented when he got away. Had to be a story in there later over beer.

Though the crack of the shot had scared off the iriaz, the herd wouldn't be hard to follow. Wasn't going to take a Clan Kotkarta ranger to track them down. Hell.. Canderous bet the son of the Coruscant senator could probably figure it out. With a posh call-girl's knickers over his head for a blindfold at that.

The torn and shredded grasses were giving off a good smell in the morning heat. Canderous found his spirits lifted. That didn't mean he wanted to chat with Onasi right yet; one of the things he liked about ole Republic was that he knew the value of silence. Just that he spent it on brooding and moping. Life was for living. Even with his mission.

After a mile and a half, Canderous said, "So you'll kill Karath when we find him."

"Karath is dead when I see him."

He answered that right away, like he had it right on the tip of his tongue.

Canderous smiled. "And then what?"

"There is no then what."

"Maybe. I figured that was the thing with your rank."

Carth frowned at him. "What about it?"

"You're a commander in the Republic navy. But here you are running around like one of your common soldiers. That's not done with your people, is it? An officer is a gentleman. You should be drinking caffa on the bridge of a ship somewhere. Wearing one of your funny little outfits. This is grunt work for you."

"You're hardly the one to talk about funny outfits," Carth replied.

"Well?"

"There's some truth in what you say. This is a strange mission. One of the strangest I've been on. I guess I happened to be in the right place at the right time."

Canderous heard that Carth remained one of the last souls on the Endar Spire, that even as it ruptured, he had refused to leave any of his men behind. Good thing, too, to have rescued Bha'lir. He was a rare prize.

"What I'm getting at is this. You think you're on a suicide mission. Your navy thinks so. Your jedi all think so."

"Of course it is," Carth snapped. For a moment there was a naked bitterness in his voice. "That's what everything thinks, what they intended. There's me. There's Bha'lir.. Mentally crippled. Isn't going to get better. Hell, Bastila. With her powers she's better dead than alive. If Malak gets ahold of her.. "

"Throttle back. I think it'll all be fine. _Vod'ika_ won't get better, but even all clouded up as he is, he's still smarter than all of us put together. When he isn't being so damn dumb."

Carth's hackles went up, but Canderous just smiled. "It's true," he added. "Anyway, my point's this. You'll kill Karath when you find him."

"That's what I said."

"Then what?"

"I don't expect to get out of there alive," Carth answered.

"Sure you will. _Vod'ika_ will think of something."

The pilot snorted softly and a smirk of understanding slowly appeared. "Yeah, I guess he'll just pull some miracle out of his ass. As usual."

"Can't wait, personally. Just to see what he does this time." Canderous grinned a wily grin. "He keeps it all interesting, even to a crusty old man like me. So when it's over, you'll go back to your world Telos, or will you stay in the Navy? Marry again?"

Carth's face closed to him. "Haven't thought about it. Haven't had the time."

Canderous gestured to the wide expanse around them, the great silence of the open plains. "Time now."

"What you need is a Pengalan wife," Canderous told him over a lunch of field rations. He talked with his mouth full. "Good and fat, with tasty cooking."

Carth frowned at him and leaned back against smooth tree bark. "I'll pass," he said. He had stripped off his jacket by this time, down to his undershirt with the dark rings of sweat.

By this time the beating sun had halted their advance. The herds were farther off but not likely to move, not in this heat. Their bodies were dark hunkered-down smudges a ways away. Lots of mamas dozing off, with some of the babies prancing around on new legs. The two men had sheltered likewise in the shade of a blba tree. Its acrid smell was sharpened by the heat.

"Almost took me one," Canderous continued. "We screamed down onto that mudball and whipped them like children. Their men couldn't fight worth a damn. Their women, however.. "

"Spare me the rosy reminiscence of your rape and plunder. We were starting to get along."

"Aw, hell. The way I figured it, their women were so starved for real men, we had to beat them off with a rifle stock. I remember one time I kicked in this door and burst in ready to kill, and this female grabs on to me like a fat kid loves cookies-"

"I don't want to hear about it."

"Your loss, that was a good one. Had to pry her off the leg of my basilisk. Should have brought her with me, though, now that I think back on it."

"These the kind of stories you tell Bha'lir? You're proud of that?"

The Mandalorian smiled a grim smile with that notch-scar in his lip. "You should hear some of his stories."

Carth felt the unexpected sting of jealousy. It had been hard to open up to Bha'lir and his incessant questions. At first, before he really began to understand the nature of his comrade's injury, he had been infuriated by the nonstop prying, the total disregard for Carth's rank, for Carth's past, for his pain. It hadn't been Bha'lir's fault, and in fact, Carth didn't know yet who to blame for foisting him on this mission. The man had a severely damaged memory, especially short term. Some days, if he didn't read his datapad, he woke up to a ship full of strangers.

It had taken time to accept that condition and to forgive Bha'lir even when he didn't mean it. And to talk about the wars with the old war buddy he didn't know he had. But on some points even Bha'lir was quiet. Took a long time to say he didn't remember.

Did he tell Canderous something he kept from me?

"Stories like what," Carth said, as casual as he could. Didn't work. Even he could hear the edge in his voice.

"Well, for one, he was part of the mission that released that bio agent that damned near forced Clan Kaladen out of the war."

Despite the revelation, Canderous smirked, as though he enjoyed knowing something that Carth didn't. That Bha'lir had told him a confidence that he didn't share, not even with his closest friend on the Ebon Hawk, and maybe in the whole wide world right now.

"I don't believe it," Carth said.

"Me neither, but the story was so crazy, it's got to be true. He described that damn pit on Kadok-Cuir so well I could smell it again." Canderous scratched the stubble on his chin. "You know, I fought a kalee elder spearman in that system, a kaleesh, whatever they call themselves. Those reptiles weren't even involved in the war, couldn't even give a damn, we were there for the bithraevate, but that one got into his head that he wasn't going to miss it- "

"That plague. How did.. What did he do?"

"Well, it's not like he made it with his little chemistry set. Anyway, you should ask him, I don't want to spoil it. A good story." Canderous smirked. "And Lord Kaladen should have known better than to get taken in by such parlor tricks. It's him I blame for what happened. Arrogant ass, half the man his uncle was."

Carth said nothing.

"Deserved to die shitting his armor if you ask me." The Mandalorian went back to his lunch like nothing had happened. "_Vod'ika_ has some more stories in him yet. Maybe more of his memory will come back to him. I'd like to know if I ever faced him, though I think I'd remember. I see him fighting with a vibroblade. Isn't much good with a blaster."

"He was probably one of the speeder troops," Carth said. "Why he's good with the swoop. Where his accident came from, probably."

"Think you're right. Think he's one of the irregulars. One of the fringers who wanted to save a republic they weren't even part of, hell if I know why. He's not a proper soldier, at least what you types would consider."

"No, he's not," Carth said before he could stop himself. Despite his loyalty to his new and exasperating friend, it was true. He felt the Mandalorian's eyes on him with renewed interest, smirking, almost. "I knew it from the first. The sergeant brought the new troops on the Endar Spire.. had them all stand there all crisp and military at perfect attention. All of them except him. He actually had the nerve to yawn in the presence of a decorated naval commander."

"Hah!"

"Didn't even cover his damn mouth. I went right up to him and stood this close." Carth held his palm almost to the tip of his nose.

Canderous laughed again. When he didn't have a mean laugh, he had a sharp laugh, like the bark of a kath hound. "So you yelled at his dumb ass?"

Carth felt a greasy kind of guilt. "Yeah. I didn't know. Nobody told me."

"What'd he do?"

"He didn't seem afraid or embarrassed or anything. Just kind of curious, you know how he is. Even relieved."

"What'd he say?"

Carth soaked in the heat for a moment. "He said.. 'So glad it's you, Fleet. I'm so confused.'" Damn it, but he felt his throat tighten a bit, for no reason.

"That's Bha'lir for you. No damn respect for anybody's rank. Like when he called that jedi master a silly green puppet that one time, Vandar, or Vinder, or whatever his name was. The green puppetty one." Canderous grinned. "He just says it like it is. Damned refreshing."

"It's then I should have figured out something was wrong with the whole picture. That, and, well, one of his buddies, hell, his only buddy, Ulgo Trask, he just went white in the face and was all 'sir, so sorry, sir, it's been a long trip, sir', and so on." Carth frowned. "I punished them both." Oh, Trask. Poor Trask. Even now, strange enough, Bha'lir could forget Mission's name or even Bastila herself, but even now he'd sometimes ask about Trask. Like he did yesterday. He'd been so sure Trask was here on Dantooine. He could get so mixed up sometimes..

"Well, what a mean old ass you are, Onasi. Some hero of the Republic, picking on a poor brain damaged man." Canderous laughed while he said it, and in the most chastising tone. "A disabled veteran too. Shaaame."

Carth was surprised how deep it cut. "I didn't know," he said, testy. "I don't know if anyone did. Maybe Trask. Tried to cover up for him sometimes or help him out. They weren't there long before the attack.. but some of the men had fun playing jokes on him. Like they'd get him all mixed up or send him on pointless errands. Made him make caffa over and over, because he'd forget that he did. Thought he was stupid. Hell, I did, before I figured it out."

The smile slowly eroded from the Mandalorian's face. "Sons of bitches," he said.

Carth never spoke ill of the dead, but there was a single fact lodged in his chest like a piece of shrapnel. "When the sith were killing everyone on the Spire.. Bha'lir was holding a caffa pot in the break room."

"Is that what made you stay behind?"

Carth shut his eyes. "No. Yes, maybe. But I never wanted to leave anyone behind." Never again.

"You stayed to save him, when Bastila fled."

And Carth hated her for that, even though they had become something like friends, even though they had come to confide in each other from time to time. It was always there. He was sickened of speaking about his people behind their back, so he snapped back, "She had to, if she'd been taken it would all be over."

"You say that like it's a given," Canderous snorted.

"The sith have ways."

"Oh, whatever.. I don't disagree, though. I always found it interesting how quick the jedi went bad. Like flipping a switch."

Carth said nothing. If he spoke out loud, he would agree. Instead he looked away, back out at the grasslands and the iriaz lounging in the distance.

"Makes you wonder," Canderous said, "how deep their convictions really go."

"They're different from you and me," is all that Carth would concede to.

"Must be. Even when Darth Revan destroyed Malachor, melted our basilisks, stripped our armor, and had us tied up and lined up, beaten down on our knees, I still had enough in me to give her some sass. Right to her face."

Carth shouldn't have looked so incredulous. Canderous ate it up. The old son of a bitch's eyes were dancing.

"I don't believe that."

"Doesn't make it not true."

Carth tried to put his thoughts together. He said, "I don't believe you said it to her face."

"To her mask. As close as this." He held his palm almost to the end of his nose. Then he winked.

The conversation had taken a turn he hadn't expected, and he was weary from the walk and from the heat. Not knowing what to say, Carth just shook his head. "Revan was a man," he said.

"Everybody likes to argue. Even to this day. But I know. Only a woman could be so cruel."

"Yeah, well. You deserved it."

"I'll tell that story someday. It's pretty good. Maybe I'll tell my Revan story, and ole Bastila can tell hers."

"She won't talk about it." And Carth hadn't wanted to know.

"Can't or won't."

"Don't talk to her about it."

"Vod'ika will get it out of her."

Carth pulled his jacket over his head, now, to make a shelter from the sun. He'd said enough, and was tired.

"So while we're telling tales," Canderous prodded on.

"No. Later."

"We always wondered. How the hell did we not kill you that one time? For sure we shot your ass down in the jungle."

"I'm just that good." A broken leg, terror, the secret mission, certain death in the coming airstrike..

"Wish I could have killed ya," Canderous said, and through the fabric of the jacket, his voice sounded wistful to Carth.

At any other time, Carth would never take a noonday nap with a mortal enemy just a stone's throw away, but in this case, he just grunted and got himself comfortable. "Yeah," he said. "Wish I could have killed you too."

* * *

The herds were gone.

No matter. There was no hurry. Better to take their time and bring back barbecue. Nobody on the Hawk wanted to eat any more of that bland jedi food. Hell, even Bastila couldn't go back after a taste of Carth's cooking. Which reminded the sly old mercenary of a certain point of gossip he wanted to ask Fleet about, but there'd be time later. Not like Carth would ever say, but a man's face could tell you all you needed to know.

They tracked the sign of the iriaz across the plain, a comfortable silence between them. A welcome breeze picked up after awhile, and a creamy green collection of brith winged gently over the grassland. Canderous saw Carth turn his head to watch them, following the flight of the manta-like creatures. The Mandalorian had an errant thought that he could shoot Carth right now and no one would know. Well. They would know later.

Canderous blamed the thought on the sniper rifle slung across his back. As though HK was rubbing off on him. That damn thing made everybody uneasy, but vod'ika loved it so.

"You used to fly, Canderous?" Carth asked him after awhile.

"_Nayysh_... couldn't flap my arms hard nough." That made the pilot smirk.

"Your war droid, I mean. Your basilisk. You had one?"

"Yeah."

"How'd it handle?"

Canderous smiled at the man's naivete. "A basilisk war droid wasn't like a ship or a vehicle, Carth. You didn't just steer it around."

The pilot shook his head. "Fine, then what?"

"Mine was a warrior and a true friend," Canderous replied. "Talash was his name. He was a right _mando'a_, deadly to enemies and good to our family. I tell you, the greatest sound I've ever heard is the whine of his engines when I needed backup in combat. One blow from his claws could disable one of your tanks."

And his children would sit and play on those very same big paws. Talash seemed to take a shine to his youngest daughter in particular.

"I was always changing planes. You had to fly what was there. But there was one old Aurek I flew a couple of missions.. damned thing was so finicky and particular. Sort of like your first hand-me-down landspeeder. Only you know how to drive it."

Carth was trying to find a common ground there, but it couldn't be done. "I don't think you could understand," Canderous answered, his eyes following the movement of a lone hound in the distance. "They weren't vehicles."

"Did yours talk?"

Now Canderous smiled. "Hell, all the time. Getting him to shut up was the thing."

"I can't imagine flying an Aurek that talked back to me." Onasi scritched his beard. "Wouldn't stand for it, really."

"Hah! Talash had his own way about him. Things he liked, didn't like. Of course it was all programming.. " Canderous gave him a sharp look to make him understand that he wasn't some silly superstitious savage. ".. but you couldn't say he didn't have spirit." He liked to think that even now Talash lived on in the _manda_.

"No. I don't doubt it. There was one, back in the opening battles on Dxun and Onderon.. hell. That one had spirit. An evil spirit."

His eyebrows shot up, and then he smiled, needing to know. "Were you there," he asked, "when they dug up the Red Dragon?"

"Yeah. What a fiasco."

Canderous growled with pleasure. "You were witnessing history right there."

"Yeah, I think I've witnessed enough history to last me a long time."

"Lord Taltora thought he'd give the Red Dragon to Mandalore, get himself a bride in return. Clan Taltora were all idiots, frankly. We in Ordo told him not to break into that tomb. They buried that monster in there for a reason. We lost a lot of good warriors."

"Not to mention it destroyed several blocks of downtown Iziz and fired missiles through the windows of the grand palace."

Canderous smiled. "I know, I saw it. My son and I were pretending to be merchants in the bazaar." Even now, years away, worlds away, he felt the hairs on his arms stand up in memory of that basilisk's voice booming across the city, deep and haunting, full of rage, daring someone to try and be its master.

"They put me and Tosska on standby to shoot it down, if the expedition went wrong." Carth's voice had grown quiet. "Gave us a hell of a fight. Efficient, like a droid, but it seemed so angry. It kept talking over our radios, talking to me."

"What did it say?"

"I don't know, not really. It talked in mando'a, and I had to concentrate on the fight. Grav combat's totally different from space."

"Now, were you the pilot on the wall, or the pilot over the plaza?"

Carth shook his head. "I was forced to land on the Great Wall. And Tossk would have got his neck broken by what happened, but he was already dead. That's why he lost control of the ship."

Canderous remembered the chaos in the newly reclaimed city. All of Onderon's capital was in terror of that damned metal beast. Fire and smoke everywhere. Huge slashes taken out of the buildings, probably still there to this day. Canderous and Keldeesh had been pretending to hawk rugs and carpets all that morning, getting a good look at Iziz City and the new republic garrison. They had the prime view of Lord Taltora's folly, the risen Hetteesh Kyramud, Burning Death, the monster made for the Mandalore in the age of Exar Kun. The poisoned gift. The last cry of the Basilisk people who were driven to extinction, the last vessel of their hatred.

It had taken the best pilots of the Republic to bring it down. Canderous remembered seeing that one Aurek fighter spinning wildly out of control, a flaming arrow headed straight to the crowded plaza.

He would always remember the fear he felt, then, real fear, with his hands on his son's shoulder and head.

And he would always remember how the Aurek suddenly stopped in mid air. And hung there.

The nose of the spacecraft hovered only a meter away from the outstretched hand of the one they would call _Aruena_, with her cold blue eyes and bright blond hair. The Witch. The Whore.

"What happened to her, after the war?" Canderous asked.

Carth had moved on, shrugged off the heavy memories. "Who, Runi, the consular?"

_Runi_. A name that meant soul in the old poems. Cruel to have it so close to what the clans came to call her- the Traitor of All Traitors.

"The girl your jedi took from our people."

Carth didn't deny it. "She tried to go back to the jedi after the war. They condemned her and sent her into exile."

"Idiots. They didn't know what they had. Her power was terrible. We lived in fear of her and Revan."

"If you're interested, Bha'lir has a holo about her. If Bastila hasn't smashed it."

Canderous snorted. "She regrets not having the grit to stand up to us, to go against us in the war. I can smell it on her."

"Think you're right."

"She was so beautiful, Runi was. It's all you could think about. She had this power in her eyes, in her voice. We were all desperate for her. Even after all that she did.. Even after all the thousands she killed.. we would have wanted her back. The jedi just threw her away. I know for damn sure that Clan Ordo would have taken her in."

"Too bad you didn't," Carth grunted. "Then you'd all be dead."

Canderous clucked his tongue. "But what a way to go."

And even Carth had to smile. "Hell."


	2. Chapter 2

Onasi broke their silence some two hours later with, "Don't shoot, he's wearing a collar."

How had he seen that? Good vision, a pilot.

Canderous squinted against the sun and sure enough, the bounding animal at least looked like it was half-domesticated. He kept his weapon at the ready nonetheless.

It was a native beast that duro explorers had named _huurton_. It had the look of a canine with the sleek head and long body, but scaly growth plated a stripe from its horned skull all the way down its spine. The huurton ranged up to them, stood off a safe distance, and began to bark excitedly from a tusked mouth.

The men and the alien regarded one another. They had only come across this creature's wild cousins before, back when they first came onworld from Taris. As a major competitor with the kath hound, the armored canines seemed shy and defensive, edging away from direct combat.

The mandalorian's eyes moved from the pet version to the pilot, whose face held an inscrutable expression. Then Carth smiled and said, in a fun voice, "Hey.. Whattayou doin', huh?"

This sent the creature into a bounce of joy. It wagged its tail and rump up in the air, and then it did little sideways jumps, whining.

Carth grinned, and made a fake lunge at the animal. The huurton barked and jumped up all over him, trying to lick his face.

Canderous watched all this happen with raised eyebrows.

The collar didn't show the animal's name, so for the afternoon, the hurrton was known as Buddy, and he was their companion for a little while.

They followed the herds in a meandering trail, dipping down by the watercourse that fed the plains. The huurton bounded, jumped, and splashed, and brought back a wet stick for Carth to throw.

Canderous got to thinking, again, what kind of man Onasi was.

They'd known him first as a callsign and then just a name. There were some among his brothers who could not believe a pilot could be a true warrior, that a true warrior fights face to face and not from afar. Canderous had been no different, when he was a young man, but the weary decades had started to shake him from his belief.

The _Jetiise_ fought differently than his people. They had their squeamish senate, their floating chairs full of self-important politicians who had never held a weapon. They had their armies with their funny colored uniforms, trained like cringing dogs, with so many rules and regulations. They had outnumbered the Clans five to one, and yet the mandalorians had brought them whimpering to their knees.

Yet there were men like Onasi who begrudgingly went to war, devastated their enemies, and then went home to kiss their wives and hold their children. Who might never go into battle again, who had no taste for it.

Canderous watched Carth heave the stick into the water again, with the alien hound exploding after it.

They walked on for awhile with the huurton for company. It padded around, wagging its tail, wandering into their legs and trying to get them to throw that slimy stick again.

Onasi treated it kindly.

Canderous laughed when at one point Carth stopped to take a piss. The dog took a piss too, hoisting its leg and gazing around the savannah with a serious expression, one tooth poking out of its muzzle.

It's not too late for him to start over again, Canderous thought. It never is.

By late afternoon, their path brought them near a string of bachelor piket. Carth paused to appreciate the tall animals with their s-shaped necks, all mottled in color. Canderous watched them chew the thorns right off a blba tree.

They took shade and rested. Carth was feeding some jerky to the huurton.

"Bah, make him earn his keep, " Canderous told him. He stretched out more comfortably.

"I think chasing a stick is more his speed. His food comes in a bowl, he's just some farmer's pet."

"Feed him your rations if you want, but don't cry if you're hungry."

Carth grinned, then. "I have an idea, actually," he said.

Canderous looked over at him. "I already thought about it.. " he pointed his chin at Buddy, who thumped his tail, oblivious. "But their meat is tough, stringy. Not worth the trouble scooping him out of his armor."

The pilot's grin faded. "You're an ass, you know that," he said. "Anyway, I meant fishing." He looked for Buddy's input with, "I bet you like fish, don't ya, boy?"

Canderous provided some all-purpose cord. Carth found some suitable blba thorns for to make a hook. The huurton pushed its scaly face into the whole process, sniffing and licking.

Carth used a stick to dig up some grubs. The huurton also dug a hole, before he stuck his head into it and whuffed deeply.

The pilot was quiet while they worked, but as they went down to the stream, he said, "My wife always.. She'd make me bait the hook for her, every time. Couldn't stand how it wriggled in pain."

"My wife could cut the head off a zabrak in one clean stroke, no halfsies, no flopping around, nothing." Canderous smiled at a fond memory. "Right between the vertebrae."

Carth gave him a hard look. "Morgana," he said, "was a lady."

* * *

The garfish were biting. Carth had caught three and threw back the one that was too small. Buddy jumped in after it, and all his splashing chased away the remainder. Afterwards, the huurton got his nose caught on the hook, cried, and made a huge production of it as Carth tried to get the blba thorn out.

While Canderous cobbled together a campfire, Carth scaled and gutted the fish. He thought of lazy afternoons sitting out on the pier when he was young, fishing and talking with Granddad, the one he was named after. It still brought pain. A duller ache, but it was still there.

Melancholy settled over him as the sun sank lower. His thoughts went to Bha'lir.

Carth realized he hadn't spent much time away from him.

The man was a constant irritant in the beginning. Always asking the same questions. Always touching off some whirlwind of trouble. But he hadn't been picking open half-healed scars to hurt Carth; he just hadn't known, and Carth hadn't realized what was wrong with him at first. He'd actually thought Bha'lir was stupid. Stupid beyond stupid, like one of those hunky slabs of beef in one of Mo's favorite romance vids. His kindly open face, his big amber eyes. He'd always smile if you looked his way. He'd wander off. Get lost. You'd have to go and find him, and when you did, he'd get found lost and confused, scratched up and scruffed up, smudged with some lady's lipstick, and if you were lucky, he'd be wearing at least half the clothes he started out in.

The datapad changed things. The quest log, he called it. Carth got him to write down what went on each day. Given time to read over his entries in the morning, Bha'lir revealed a sharp mind and a clarity of vision. One of the smartest people he'd ever encountered, and on some other level way out there. Unbelievable. You'd never know, you really never would. He'd make a remark over caffa and hours later, Carth was struck by what he really meant. By then it was always too late to ask him again. He wouldn't remember. He'd shrug, smile, and go back to his nap.

It's just Carth got used to seeing him day in, day out. Yeah, he'd look over there, physically feeling his hair turn gray, and think, you son of a bitch, you drive me crazy.

And Bha'lir would be fast asleep with half a smile on his face, ragdolled up in the co-pilot's chair. He would always lay out like a bomb went off or something, arms and legs everywhere, head back, mouth open.

He could fall asleep anywhere, and did.

Usually wandering around the ship. Sleeping on one of the benches, or in the medbay, or on a pile of laundry. Stretched out on the swoop bike, or leaning on Zaalbar.

He could be dead asleep, mouth open, in one of those boneless heaps. But the instant Carth moved a muscle to get up, he'd blink awake, yawn, and meander barefoot back to their dormitory wing if there wasn't anything to eat along the way. Some greatly philosophical remark with his head in the fridge unit. Or some cryptic comment. "Bastila thinks I don't know," he said last time, looking for banja cake.

_Back in the dormitory, Carth propped up on elbow and looked across to Bha'lir on his bunk. "Hey," he said. "Bastila thinks you don't know what?"_

_Bha'lir had his datapad on his belly, blinking slowly, watching a game show that glowed blue on his abdomen and arm. "What?"_

_"What you said earlier."_

_"What did I say earlier?"_

_Carth should have known better to talk to him at the end of the day. "You said Bastila thinks I don't know."_

_"You don't know what?"_

_Carth sighed. "No, you said.. you said there was something that you know, that Bastila thinks you don't know."_

_"Oh. Because when you said.. " A lazy smile went across Bha'lir's face. "I thought you meant you."_

_"What was it?"_

_Bha'lir grinned. "What was.. ? Oh I don't know."_

_Carth shook his head. "You're frustrating as hell, you know that?"_

Now he sat in a deepening gloom, slowly patting the head of the alien dog curled up against him.

Canderous had an arm over his eyes, stretched flat on his bedroll. "He'll be all right," he said, out of nowhere, like he knew Carth worried. Like worry lines were physically coming off of him. That's what Bha'lir called them.

Carth didn't deny it. He thought about it, but he knew the mandalorian would see through him. "I just, I don't know. I've never seen him like that before."

Carth remembered how he looked through the port window into the airlock, where they had no choice but to keep him. Rage and despair twisted his face into something Carth did not recognize, and he shouted in a language only the droid could understand. They had to put HK down. The machine couldn't be trusted in a situation like that. Not with its weapon up, optics glowing, processor cycling through a series of options. Who knows what it would do to defend him.

"Don't know if I buy this story about the swoop bike accident," Canderous said.

"You think it was something else?"

"Don't know. Something worse. He's been in a dark place. Better off not knowing. You see how happy he is most the time." Canderous shifted his arm and turned his head, squinting at Carth. "Ole Bastila keeps on pushing him."

"He has this gift. I don't know if it was always there, laying dormant.. maybe the accident brought it out. I don't know. But he has this gift and they're trying to use him up." Carth thought of how cold some of them were, their eyes judging Bha'lir, and how Bastila sometimes looked close to tears beneath their scrutiny. That frigid Atris woman.

"Bahhh.. They're all jealous."

Carth smirked. "When they fight.. he makes their champion duel look like a school play."

The mandalorian also smiled, a mean craggy little smile. "And he doesn't even care."

"I shouldn't have let Bastila talk me into bringing him here." Carth sighed and gave the alien dog a squeeze. It nuzzled into his hand and left a wet mark on his wrist.

"You're like a damn woman sometimes, Onasi. He'll be fine. He's probably forgotten all about it. Hell." The mandalorian's eyes crinkled at the corners, all sly. "I bet he's got Bastila flat on her back in the grass right now."

And then there was that. "Yeah well. I hope they've got better sense than to do that here."

Canderous scratched his chest idly as he talked. "Don't see why not. Hell, the order here is always harping on Bastila and Bha'lir exploring their bond. What in the hell did they expect was going to happen. Good looking young people like those two. I wasn't going to say anything, but I went into the cargo hold to grab some gun oil.. And it looked like some exploring was going on."

Carth turned his head and gave him a look.

"I coulda blasted in on my basilisk war droid in full gas. They wouldn't have noticed. At first I thought vod'ika was in on it, but I stood there a full minute and-"

"All right! Look." Carth's voice came out sharper than he intended. The huurton's ears went flat, like he was being yelled at. "Don't say anything to her about it. She's under a lot of pressure."

Canderous smirked at him, half-mocking. Too frequently their conversations turned into a mando circle match. Canderous kept trying to stagger him, kept trying to get in those little jabs to push him out of the ring. "That's something she's going to have to figure out for herself. I don't see her going back, not after this."

"Well that's not any of your business."

"I don't know, is it any of yours?"

After a few seconds, Carth said, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh nothing, I guess," Canderous trailed off, and he covered his eyes in the crook of his arm.

Carth moved the alien dog with a light prodding from his boot, and then he stretched out flat. He balled his jacket up under his head. The huurton turned a circle and laid down by his feet, lolling its tongue a little. It yawned a soft whine of a sound.

He listened to the fire pop. The burning blba wood was giving off a drowsy good smell.

"We should go back in the morning," Carth said.

"Give it a rest, Onasi."

* * *

By first light, they ate crumbly rations and rolled up their meager camp. The huurton found dung in the grass and that was good enough for him, to the pilot's disgust. Canderous just laughed. Dogs were dogs.

Old Republic was still in his mood, even though it was a beautiful morning, all purple and gold, with a cooler breeze coming in. Good to enjoy before it got hot out here.

"I know this weight you carry," Canderous told him, after awhile. "Your world destroyed. Your woman and your son dead. All the clans are scattered. Our armor's been taken from us. Our weapons. I've lost all my women, my cousins, my sons."

He expected more force in Carth's rejoinder, but the man was in his thoughts this morning, distant. "You started it," he said. "You should have thought about that before you dragged them into the war."

"They died fighting. They went like warriors."

"My wife died getting ready for her aerobics class."

Canderous watched his face as he spoke. A tightening in his mouth and at the corners of his eyes, but there wasn't anger in the way he said it. Just that quiet intensity that came over him at times, like he'd pulled it all inside and there wasn't room for anything else. It was almost all he was now. Didn't have to be.

"I've lost more than you," Canderous began.

"Does it all have to be a damn _contest _with you," Carth hissed.

"Let me finish. I've lost more than you, but you know the difference between you and me? I never expected anything different. I know how the world works. You in your republic.. You think your laws are invincible. You think your comforts are a birthright. You thought the jedi would protect you, and they didn't. You thought Revan died a hero, but she didn't. You thought Karath wouldn't betray your people, and he did."

"I could have stopped it."

"No you couldn't."

"I could have done something."

"Not a damn thing. What's done is done. It happens all the time. Happens every day. A million tragedies each and every hour. You got to be stronger, that's all. Get you a stronger woman, maybe, if that's what you want."

Carth stopped, half-stepped forward, and then turned around, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. "Why do you keep bringing this up?" he said.

"Thinking about the future, that's all."

"Spare me the mandalorian family values."

"Think I'll try to put the clan back together," said Canderous, mildly. "There hasn't been a Lord Ordo for awhile now."

Carth looked away. "How nice for you," he muttered, and they walked in silence.

The huurton came wagging up with a stick in his mouth, prodding the pilot's legs, but the man just wasn't in the mood for it. The alien hound persisted, whining around a drooly mouthful.

"If I make it through this, one thing's for damn sure," Carth said. "I'm not letting the jedi take him. I won't let them cloister him away. Sit him in some room somewhere. Make him think about what he's done wrong."

Canderous didn't try to fight the little smirk stealing over his face. "I bet they'd never tell him, and he'd never know, not all the way. He'd wander around here forever, wasting away. Maybe once or twice he'd remember some war.. Maybe he'd half remember he'd been on a mission once.. " he gave the knife a twist. "He'd had some friends.. maybe.. no.. just a dream."

It was like sticking your hand into a bird's nest, Canderous thought. Lots of wing flapping, squawking. Getting pecked. Onasi just about sputtered, "See, that's exactly, that's _exactly_ what I wouldn't stand for."

"Daww, can't you just see him waiting all by himself, wondering if his friends will come back?" Canderous made his biggest, saddest pout, and then laughed. He couldn't hold it in. The feared killer of their people, death from above, Fleet Onasi, had the tenderest, gooshiest heart. You could make it bleed with the littlest poke.

Carth shook his head. "If we can't find his brother," he started.

"Bah, the brother's dead."

"If we can't find his brother, or anybody who knows him, I don't know," Carth muttered. "He can stay with me for awhile. I mean, to get back on his feet."

"Makes sense to me," Canderous said. "Hell, he just follows you around everywhere. Vod'ika just loooves you. Hell if anybody knows why, all you do is snap and bitch like a woman on the rag. Speaking of, you'd have to take ole Bastila too. Would just be cruel to give her a taste of that and steal him away."

Begrudgingly, Carth took the stick from the hound at long last. Gave it a heave. "I just want him to get better."

"He's not going to. He's done. You should stop telling him otherwise."

"He's improved. I've seen it."

"Only cause you got him writing in his little journal. Remember when he thought he was Davik Kang? Because it was Davik Kang's ship?"

He relished the look that went over Carth's face, that groan-and-eyeroll. "I thought we agreed to never talk about that again."

"Hell, I never agreed to anything." Canderous grinned, and switched shoulders with his rifle. "What happened on Tatooine, anyway?"

"Yeah well, you were drinking a lot of that fermented cactus crap."

"Even sober I still couldn't have made sense of it." He watched Carth as he walked; sometimes you learned more from what he wouldn't say.

They walked on for a half-hour more, and Canderous was the first to pick up something different. The huurton, 'Buddy', had stopped fetching the stick. Its ears were pricked, and its armored snout was testing the air. Only when they reached the first scare-dummy did Onasi figure it out. They had reached the edge of some family farm; there were some lines of vegetables maturing in the sun, some drying stacks of lavender hay, and rigged-up dummies made of old clothes and straw to keep the animals away.

Children rushed to meet the huurton, who bowled them over, licking and wagging. A woman came out smiling to meet them, and then she saw the black ink on the mandalorian's arm. Her face shadowed, and she hissed to her children, bringing them back in with a look of alarm.

"I'll handle it," Carth said, "you better stay here."

Canderous crossed his arms, watching Onasi walk out to meet them.

Ordinarily, he enjoyed such a reaction. The weak flocks of Republic people always cringed and bleated at the sight of him. He was a predator. Always would be.

But he felt an unexpected twinge of annoyance. Watching the menfolk come out of the grass with weapons.

He couldn't hear Onasi from this range, but he saw the man smile, gesture. He reached into his sweaty shirt and drew out his tags.

Canderous wondered what he was saying.

Idly, he remembered a time when he was younger. Raiding with his mother's brother. They had sacked a farm much like this one. Mother didn't. Wasn't much for the taking, she always said. Just leave them be. Only when he had married and fathered children of his own did he think about that, wondering if his mother's hardship had given her sympathy for families of others. She had raised him alone. She had never married.

Carth came back.

Canderous huffed.

"They're just cautious. There have been raiders. Mandalorians."

"Because all raiders are mandalorians."

"They had the clan tattoos. And the armor."

"Bah. Sounds like something Taltora would do, or the Vhett."

"Don't tell me you haven't burned a farm in your time."

"So what'd you say to them?" Old, broken-toothed mando?

"I said we were friends, that we're here with the jedi and just killing some time."

"So now we're friends."

"I had to say something. Anyway, they were glad we brought Captain back."

"You mean Buddy?"

"Yeah, his real name's Captain."

"He outranks you."

"I've had a CO or two like him in the past. You just have to smile and throw the stick."

Canderous snorted. They walked.

"I never burned a farm. Not personally. Went raiding with my wife's brothers one time, when I was a young man. Messy work. They put up a hell of a fight with what little they got. And for what? Some hay? You have power over them, so why bother. You can leave them all dead, or you can leave them alone, and they can end out the day with a cool drink under their front porch."

He thought about the raid, how his wife's older brother chased a screaming farm girl into a melon patch. All in heavy armor and a narrow visor, he hadn't seen the vines and tripped. His first blow cut off her left hand, and she just sprayed and shrieked. He went after her again, and ended up lodging his blade in one of the melons. The others just watched, laughing, as he tried to get the melon off. The girl just shrieked a blood curdling sound. His wife chuckled and took a few shots at her, just to make fun of her brother. One of the shots blew her leg off at the knee. Other warriors cheered from the fence, where they had climbed up to rest a spell.

Then Canderous shot the girl in the head. The screaming stopped. That was that.

He'd gone wrong with that first wife, he knew now. Taltora clan were all wrong. He should have held out for an Ordo woman.. but then, then he wouldn't have had his little girl.

"Hey," Carth said.

"What?"

"I said, this way. One of the boys said he'd seen them go down to the waterway."

"I never killed people like this," Canderous said. "No honor in it. They're just trying to get by."

"But you defend your war."

"Against the Republic. Not these people."

"The people are the Republic."

"Are they really? All those fat, soft sons of bitches in their floating chairs. I stand by it. Always will. Not all of what happened, sure. All those young punks.. all those fake mandalorians the other clans brought in. Those recruits. Slapping on a bucket doesn't make you manda."

Carth possessed an expressive voice and now, from a sidelong smirk, it twisted out in sarcasm. "Yeah, those damn wannabes giving you a bad name," the pilot grumped. "It takes a real man to butcher innocents."

"Tell me something, Onasi. You really believe you never killed any innocents?" He saw Carth's face tighten. "That every bomb you dropped killed a bad guy for sure? That you never melted some family with a laser, that you never roasted some neighborhood? You told me you were there on Onderon when they dug up the dragon. Then you were there for the invasion of Dxun. I bet it was you who firebombed the whole lot of us." He'd thought of that sometimes, making it out of there in the nick of time with a little girl under his arm. Wondered, sometimes, what became of her.

"We planned as best we could. That's what we do. We tried to prevent collateral damage at all costs, in every engagement. The difference between you and me is that I don't think killing makes me a man."

"It doesn't," Canderous grunted. "But it depends." He turned away from Carth's sunburned face, and his eye scanned the horizon. He shielded his gaze from the sun, and said, "I'll always remember fighting that old kalee spearman. He wanted to go out fighting. He had a lifetime learning his weapon, learning his craft. He knew what it meant to be a warrior. I'll always remember fighting Revan's jedi. There was one of them, an ithorian. Even he knew what was at stake. The best of us. The best of them."

They walked away from the farm with only the wind and their boots for sound. The brushing grass. There was an avian of some kind with four arms, ugly, with vermillion spots. It sunned itself in one of the thorny branches. It craned its neck as they passed close and its blue tongue made a panting flicker.

Canderous thought again of the farm from the raid. He'd learned something about his first wife that day, and something about himself. And mother, the way she brought him up.

After awhile, when they stopped to purify new water, Canderous said, "Your father ever take you out like this? Hunting?"

"No. We lived on the coast. Fishing, mostly."

"Little fish?"

Carth held out his hand and his flask as wide as he could make his arms. "Some got big. We'd go with speeder boats and harpoons."

"You think they survived?"

Carth shrugged. "It's not as bad as we first thought. The vapors are starting to clear. Probably the ocean life made out all right.. but the waterways are still contaminated. They send down research teams sometimes.. not now, though, I mean, with Malak's sith."

"If I hadn't seen Malachor with my own eyes.. I wouldn't have believed you could ruin a whole world."

"That fifth planet was weird to begin with. Even when we first got there.. you knew something wasn't right. It just looked unstable."

Canderous crouched by the stream, watching it bubble over smooth pebbles. "What did they do to it? What was Revan's weapon?"

"Don't know." Carth shrugged. "Don't even think Karath was cleared to know."

Canderous couldn't help a grim smile. "I'll always remember that.. Revan coming over our comms and saying we had an hour to surrender. She had that screeching vocabulator so you couldn't tell her voice."

"His."

"Don't contradict me, Onasi. I know what I know."

Carth rolled his eyes. And then he smiled, too, shaking his head. "Yeah.. After that hour, he said you had to surrender. That Mandalore commanded you." He held up a hand like it clutched something. "With that bloody helmet.. That bloody severed head."

"Then everything went green." Canderous licked his lips. "Even in full Dantooine heat.. I can still feel that chill."

Carth's smile faded. "Didn't have to come to that. Lost a lot of good people."

"There was some talk that Runi did it with her evil magic.. but that was rumors, after. When it happened, it went quick, and nobody knew what was going on til we got herded up."

Carth was studying him, eyes squinted. "When you think about it, you're lucky to be alive, Canderous. Especially with that story you told me."

He smirked. "She respected my fire. Never submit to a woman, Onasi. Even when they got you on your knees."

"I'm tired of arguing with you people. Even Bastila said Revan was a man."

Canderous snorted. "But notice how she hesitates if you ask her about it? She's said something different every time you ask. Can't keep her story straight."

"I've never asked her about it."

"Don't you want to know what happened?"

"No. I want to remember Revan from the war. I don't want anything to change that."

"She didn't destroy Telos."

"I know. I've thought about it. When they came back, they took only the worlds that they needed.. Killed only those that they had to. I'm not defending anything they did, but some of those places needed clearing out, so I'm not all that upset, I won't lie.. "

"You're defending it." Canderous smirked.

"I know he wanted Telos because of the military bases. Because it was on the rim. There were always rumors of testing grounds and hidden facilities, because of all the land and how remote our world was.. I wondered if it had something to do with that."

"Revan would have wanted to keep as much of it intact as possible."

"Yeah. Malak just.. and Karath. He always had this paranoid edge to him. This, I don't know, this anger that no one was taking him seriously. I've learned so much from him as an officer.. but I also learned about his petty impulses, his viciousness. You always have to be.. you always have to be compassionate. Use as much force as necessary. No more."

Canderous sensed that there was more the man had to say, and he waited, getting his gear together.

"This is going to sound terrible.. " Carth started. His brows were pinched close.

"Shoot," Canderous said.

"After Malak bombed Taris.. wasted so much of his energy and resources like that.. simply unbelievable. After he did that, I don't know. I felt.. relieved, almost."

"Because it proved to you that Malak destroyed your world. Not Revan."

"Not Revan," Carth said, softly.

"You ever wonder what she was going to do?"

"No. I know. I just.. Why? That's all. I want to know why. What happened out there when she was gone."

"Sounds like sympathizer talk to me. And you said she, by the way."

Carth just shook his head. "It just slipped out. I meant he."

"You don't sound sure."

"What do you want to bet on it?"

"What do you got, that rifle? That crusty pistol? That smelly jacket?"

"That's an heirloom dueling pistol. And this smelly jacket is a hotter commodity than you think."

Canderous chuckled. "You ought to just give that to him, Carth."

"Even if I did, which I won't, he'd lose interest the second he got it. Bha'lir only wants what he can't have."

"Except he has a way of getting everything he wants."

"Yeah well," Carth said, "somebody's got to tell him no."


	3. Chapter 3

"You lost all your sons," Carth said, "in the war."

"Most of them to the fighting. One to a rip in his armor."

"I'm sorry."

"No you aren't. Any one of my sons would have shot you between the eye, and that's a fact."

"I'm sorry you dragged them into all that."

"It's our way. It's the way life is. You in the republic try to shield them from that, and any way, what about the twi'lek you keep carting around on our suicide mission?"

"Damn it, you know I've tried to find her a safe place she can start again."

Canderous grinned. "And she keeps sneaking back on. Don't beat yourself up over all that again, Onasi. She may be small, but she has the soul of a warrior."

"I don't even want to go down this road again." Carth shook his head. "Anyway.. you said all your sons.. "

"Yeah."

"What about your daughter?"

"She's gone."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It makes you weak."

"I'm sorry you're an asshole trapped in an antiquated culture, that, by the way, was forced on you by a race of disgusting aliens who took you as slaves."

"Blood doesn't make you mando'a. It is an idea. A way of life. The Taung were only the first."

"Whatever. I don't let pointy-headed aliens dress me funny." Carth scratched the stubble on his jaw.

"I should kill you."

"Do it."

"You think Bha'lir will protect you."

"I don't need anyone to fight my battles for me."

"Maybe after all this is over."

"Sure, whatever."

Canderous smiled. "If you're still in some mopey, foot-dragging mood and want to kill yourself.. "

"So compassionate.. I'm touched."

* * *

The herds took refuge on a hilly slope dotted with blba trees. The beating sun had them laying down, chewing lazily at the purple grasses. The hue of the vegetation made it seem hotter than it was. Some of the iriaz were clustered around the lip of a pond, where other animals had gathered, small ones and weird ones that the mandalorian did not recognize.

Sweat was itching Canderous between the shoulder blades. He and Carth had walked awhile and true to the farmers' speculation, the iriaz had chosen this place to rest.

"High ground a clear shot," he said. "What more could you ask for?"

"Well, they could just pour barbecue sauce on themselves," Carth replied with a grin.

Canderous would never admit it, but the pilot was an excellent cook. Somehow he made the most out of random ingredients found around the ship, leftovers from its former missions, or this-and-that picked up along the way. Even Bastila, harping on the virtues of self-denial and willpower, or whatever, even old Bastila was just about eating out of his hand.

And vod'ika didn't even fight it, licking his plate, utensils, and fingers in a way that a good part of the crew found distracting.

Onasi was a fool.

Later he would look back on that afternoon. Mostly he remembered the weird colors of Dantooine plains, the vivid purples and shimmering golds. The smell of the grass in the heat. Carth's voice and the edge of pain in it, when he'd lost everything.. Back before he got almost all of it back again, just not in ways he ever expected.

It was a good hunt. High ground and clear shots. A clean kill. Stretched out in the grass near the pilot, he never thought he'd have Onasi at his shoulder instead of the crosshairs. Carth would have been a prestigious kill back in the day. The chance might come round again but the moment was lost forever. The war was finished in the green fire of Malachor's destruction.

The alien dog found them not long after, barking and jumping. Some of the men from the farmstead had come to strike a deal for transport back to the enclave.

The Khoonda people feared him. He made a false start toward one of them, just to make him flinch and jump. They stiffened; one touched his weapon, and Carth intervened.

Canderous let himself have a chuckle. Dry and mean.

"You people need to toughen up, take a stand," he told them, as they hauled the antelope carcasses onto the back of the farmstead speeder. "This is your world, just you and the jedi and all this grass. Be a man. Be the master of your world."

"Raiders come," one of the older men said. He pulled up his sleeve to show the ugly burn of an old blaster wound. The muscles of the arm were atrophied around it, looking sunken and infirm. "Raiders and pirates and you savages, you mandalorians."

"And you can't even beat off the dregs of a scattered people. Maybe you aren't meant to live out in a real world.. maybe you should hide in your cities."

"Hey, all right, that's enough," Carth said. "I'm glad you came after us. There's no way we could carry these back by ourselves. If you give us a ride back to the enclave, I'll give you the choice of cut you want. Maybe make a roast, some fresh vegetables from your garden.. "

Canderous smirked.

"He won't give us any trouble," one of the farmers said, frowning.

Carth spread his hands. "Sure he will, he's a grouchy bastard, but he won't hurt you, if that's what you mean."

The older man with the injured arm put out his hand, and Carth met him with a bloody shake.

"I can't take you anywhere," Carth told Canderous.

The mandalorian watched the plains zip by, lavender and gold. The speeder was making short work of their journey together. They sat in the back seat of the speeder, with the alien hound between them. The huurton had a blissfull look on its scaly face.

"It was the truth," Canderous replied. "Anyway. Don't know why anyone would bother raiding this place anyway. It's all grass clippings and manure. Who cares."

Carth petted the huurton slowly. "You'd think the jedi would keep them away. Help out these people."

"Jedi.. fighting mandalorians? That's crazy talk, Onasi."

When Carth looked over at him, Canderous grinned.

* * *

Despite all his misgivings on the Jedi Order, Carth experienced a sense of wonder on the approach to the hidden enclave. All these times he'd seen it from the air, but he'd seen without seeing; in the pilot's chair only the_ Ebon Hawk _mattered, getting her from the outer atmosphere down to the ground. In the speeder, he drank in the golden light and the dramatic sweep of the enclave as it curved out of endless savannah.

He wanted to believe they were good, that they were all-knowing, that they were wise. Just as he wanted to believe that Zayne Carrick got away in the end, that he lived happily ever after with that girl of his, that he never woke up squinting in the dark at a stranger and a sudden beam of light.

Jolee Bindo was there to greet them, smiling his wry smile, standing with one hand clasping his wrist. He was kind to the farm folk, trading small talk, before he stepped round the craft and studied the pilot and mandalorian.

"Good to see you boys getting along," he said.

Carth smirked. "Only because we have to," he replied.

"You're a bastard, Onasi," grunted Canderous as he swung down out of the speeder. He lifted the whole antelope and hefted its bloody body on his brawny shoulder. "What about all those sweet things you said to me, bout my whole culture being a lie and how we all ought to be shot?"

"Oh, well, not all of you."

Old Jolee laughed. "That's a start, at least."

Canderous shouldered by with the iriaz carcass, grinning his crazy mean little grin. He held up his free hand- hells, he was carrying the whole thing on one shoulder- and made a little air gun, pulling the trigger at the pilot. And winked. His 'gonna kill ya, Onasi' wink.

Son of a bitch. I'm really going to have to shoot that bastard some day..

Carth shook his head and then walked with Jolee. "How's he doing?" Bha'lir.

"Well, aside from not getting the holonet out here, I'd say he's all right again."

"He's forgotten all about it, then."

"Looks like. He's very forgetful."

"Something bad happened to him. Really bad."

Jolee squinted against the afternoon sun. "Afraid so."

"How can he come to terms with something he doesn't even remember? But he still knows it."

The former jedi considered, and for a moment his face was thoughtful, like he was picking through the words he wanted to say. Measuring them carefully. "It might be for the best," he allowed. "I don't think I'd want to know what he knows. You'd have to live with it, and I don't think he can just yet. This way, he doesn't have to, not really."

Carth sighed. "I think I know," he said in a lower voice, looking away. Even in the golden warmth of Dantooine weather, and even in the marvelous atmosphere of the jedi enclave, he felt a sick coldness creeping around his heart. The weird things Bha'lir would blurt out. The scars on his body. The things that would set him off.

Jolee had stopped walking, Carth noticed. They looked at one another. "Do you?" the old man asked.

"I don't know. I don't know if any of us will ever know. But I think he was captured at one point. Imprisoned. I've been thinking about it."

Jolee watched him carefully and Carth felt prompted to continue. "When we first came here.. after Taris.. he was still pretty bad. He'd get confused. I don't know. I guess he started to think we were going to lock him up here. I don't know what he was thinking."

He remembered how one of the healers had wanted to look Bha'lir over, to treat his scrapes and scratches and the wound that Bendak Starkiller had dealt him. That hadn't gone well.

Jolee still said nothing.

Carth sighed. "I hope I made the right choice bringing him here. I know he hates it. Bastila, too, I think. They treat her like a bad child. But I didn't know what else to do."

The moment passed and Jolee clapped him on the arm, just below the shoulder strap and the rifle. "You made the right decision. He's had a good two days out here, as it happens."

"Yeah?"

"Sure, out here in the fresh air. Lots of grass to run around in. He's even made some new friends."

Due in large part to the tone that the old man used, Carth didn't know how to take that last remark. "I hope that's a good thing?"

Jolee grinned. "Well, it depends who you ask," he said, "but they're not hurting anybody. See for yourself, it looks like they're all still out there."

Bha'lir was laying around like the lazy bastard he was, like usual, and his choice of clothing reflected his life philosophy. He probably woke up sometime that afternoon and started to dress himself with the idea that he'd put on jedi clothes, and ended up thinking how comfortable it would be to go back to bed in pajamas.

He was barefoot and bare chested with some kind of comfortable-looking open shirt, half-propped up on his arm, smiling with tousled black hair. There was a trashy romance novel cover somewhere that desperately missed him.

Playing with a piece of grass, eyes half-lidded, smiling and talking about bullshit in the way that only he could, Bha'lir was addressing a crowd of fifteen to twenty enraptured jedi who were clustered about nearby, some sitting, some standing, some typing furiously on a datapad, all of various races and ages and all hanging on his every word.

Except for that one togruta male with the hot eyes and stunned expression- that guy didn't hear a damn thing, Carth could tell right now.

Bha'lir was in the middle of talking about the light of the _ashla_, the flow of cosmic love and the oneness of being, or whatever the hell enlightened bullshit he liked to talk about, when he spotted Carth. A huge smile stole across his face and he sat up slightly; some of the others turned to look, having seen his reaction. Carth shrugged, smiled back, and made a 'carry on' gesture. He'd just wanted to check.

"You think he's just making it up as he goes along?" Carth said to Jolee, who chuckled.

"Now, I think he's being genuine. I really do. They're asking him his opinions about the study of the Force. Among other things."

"What does he know? He's not really a jedi."

Jolee's mirth deepened into a chuckle. "No, he isn't, is he." He steered Carth away and started back to the _Hawk_. "I think he brings a fresh perspective to the whole business. They want to know."

"He's very bright," Carth said. "But he's still a bullshitter."

"Oh, absolutely."

They looked at one another and smirked.

"What about Bastila?" Carth let the rifle slip off his shoulder as he mounted the ramp.

"Oh, they've marched her around by the ear, scolding her, like usual. I walked in and had a talk with some of them about that."

"Heh. How'd they like that?"

There was a sparkle in Jolee's eye. "Not in the least! We had a very interesting conversation about hypocrisy."

"Let me guess, that went over well."

"Went over better than our very interesting conversation about_ irony_, though, that's for sure.. "

* * *

""Well I feel we've had a momentous adventure here on Dantooine," Bastila was saying over the lip of her newest beer. "Myself, paraded about in scorn and shame, made to answer for every one of your transgressions, while you lazed about in the sun and tempted the weak to the dark side"

"We were having a dialog," Bha'lir said, digging into his second helping. "You shouldn't be so judgmental, and anyway, what transgressions?"

Bastila cast her arm about. "Where do I begin!"

"Have some more to eat, Bastila," Carth put in. "You've had enough of those on an empty stomach."

"I want to know more about my transgressions." A smile was playing along Bha'lir's lips. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

"This is absolutely rich." Bastila smiled. "Well let me inform you that you are absolutely the worst jedi I have ever met, lazy, weak-willed, completely incapable of escaping even the faintest temptation-"

"What is this, I don't even-"

"-traipsing about the galaxy like a tipsy strumpet, committing every manner of crime and indecency-"

Bha'lir licked sauce from his fingers, saying, "I don't remember this, I think you're just projecting-"

"-heinous disregard for the rights of others, improper use of the Force, abusive mind tricks, theft-"

"She's got this all bottled up, doesn't she?"

"-murder, fellatio, grand arson- "

"For crying out loud," Carth said, "We've got Mission sitting right here, Bastila."

An irresistable smile went across Bha'lir's face, then. "I thought that was all a dream," he half-whispered. "That really happened?"

Carth put his face in his hand.

"It was glorious, _ner vod_," Canderous intoned over his beer. "Glorious."

"We love you for who you are," Mission laughed.

"And selling a hutt into slavery!" Bastila threw up her hands, splashing beer on Zaalbar, who moaned softly.

Bha'lir blinked. "Selling a hutt into slavery? How would you even.. "

"You did!" Bastila cried. "You did that!"

Carth felt that if Juhani had a tail, it would be lashing now, low and slow. "I see a kind of justice in it," the cathar said. "The hutts make their credits from the blood and sweat of their slaves."

"Of course, he didn't live long as a slave," said Jolee in a mild voice, reaching over to get a new helping of vegetables.

"Sometimes it's not how you live," said Canderous, mockingly, "but how you die. The mandalorians of old said that."

"Yeah but did they mean getting killed by jawas?" Mission half-grinned, half-cringed.

Canderous laughed into his beer. "Hell, no."

"Cause that was horrible! I was like no way. Bha'lir, man you are just a sicko, ya know what? We still love ya. You're all crazy."

"I sold a hutt into slavery and he died. That was Tatooine? Jawas?" Bha'lir seemed as surprised as anyone, but now there was a creeping realization over his face, a certain rightness, a certain justice, and he had that feline smirk on his face, eyes gold-bright from the fire.

Carth felt the need to step in. "What happened happened, all right, and it worked out, strangely enough." He dropped a new slice of barbecued antelope on Bha'lir's plate. "Anyway, you were so mixed up you thought you were Davik Kang, and now the hutts are at war with the Exchange. We're off the hook."

"Oh, no," Bastila spat out bitterly, "I've been hearing about that all day. A disturbance in the force... "

Bha'lir set down his plate and looked at her, in earnest. "I'm sorry, Bastila. I'm sorry I keep getting you in trouble. I'm not a very good jedi."

"No, you aren't, are you," she huffed.

Jolee chuckled.

But now Bha'lir had a look of wistful sadness upon his face, gleaming in the firelight. He held out his hand, palm up. "Please come sit with me," he said, softly, "and come eat with us."

Carth felt sorry for her, in some ways. Headstrong but frightened of her own power, her own desires. Not treated like a woman but as a weapon. It must be difficult for her, the pressure and the scrutiny. He knew from the start that she wouldn't be able to resist him. He knew. Bha'lir had looked into that cell and seen Bastila Shan on her knees, half-dead, with a powered collar locked around her neck. Carth remembered the look of astonishment and wonder on Bha'lir's face. Carth remembered the whole ordeal of the swoop bike, finding the money, finding the prototype, the gang-war, the black market, a duel.. how all of it came down to the moment before the race, when the Vulkars laughed and gestured to the slave cell, telling Bha'lir that the prize could be his for his enjoyment if he won the race.

There hadn't been a race, after all that.

Bastila hesitated, but the upturned palm remained.

"Please," he said.

She blew out a hiss of a breath, sighed, and lightly touched his hand, just for a moment. She took the plate Carth made for her, and Bha'lir's delight was written all over his face. He was all smiles, friendly, utterly pleased to be tucked into a warm evening with his favorite people.

"I just want to say that I've been thinking about things," Bha'lir said, casting a meaningful look about to catch everyone's eyes. "A little about what we talked about today, the oneness of being- you're smirking, Carth."

Now it became a smile. "You're full of crap, Bha'lir," he said. "But don't let that stop you."

"I never do." Bha'lir grinned back. "I just want to say that I feel I'm approaching this oneness, right now, I feel it. Sitting here among friends, sharing a meal made for us by friends, by the labor of their hands. All of us from such different walks of life. And I know.. " His voice wavered a little, and it went to straight to Carth's heart, damn him. "I know I forget things sometimes, but I really want.. I really want to remember our times together like this. Like this here."

A quiet fell between them, and there was a moment where no one said anything or touched their plate, sitting in the flickering light of the firepit at the edges of the jedi enclave.

Then Carth slugged back his beer and said, "Well.. You better go check on your assassin droid. Don't want him to wake up and start shooting people like he was doing last."

"My assassin droid," Bha'lir said. His eyes went to Bastila's face, as if to double check with her.

"I suppose you should," she muttered. Maybe for her the moment had also become too heavy. "HK was trying to protect you."

"Nothing wrong with that," Canderous said. "Keeps everybody on their toes.. keeps 'em in line, _naaysh_?"

Bha'lir looked from face to face, a look of confounded wonderment on his own, as though he dared not hope. When he spoke it was with a hesitant delight, and with a smile smudged with barbecue sauce.

He said, "I have an assassin droid?"

Mission beamed. "And he's allll yoouuurs."


End file.
